2014 Vol. 6 (2) Journal

Online group purchasing has recently become popular in Hong Kong. It is an online purchase with participation of a certain amount of customers in order to make the transaction valid. Some people regard the dining offer from online group purchasing is a fraud with the picture of food presented on the website is totally different from what they get in the restaurant. In spite of that, people still use online group purchasing to enjoy dining offers. This research therefore aims at finding out the satisfaction of customers booking dining offers through Groupon Hong Kong, an online group purchasing platform. To better measure the satisfaction of online group purchasing in primary research, online survey is carried out through SurveyMonkey where non-random convenience sampling is practised. Results find out online group purchasing influence by word of mouth which shows the importance of restaurant image while website information quality instead of layout influence purchase intention. The findings show that price is the key factor to attract customers. However, credibility of websites and food quality affects customer overall satisfaction. It is implied that correct information from Groupon Hong Kong is crucial for achieving credibility of the websites. In addition, quality of food is more important than restaurant atmosphere for which restaurants may need to pay attention on. Future study may evaluate the excitement attributes for both Groupon Hong Kong and restaurants to identify the possibility to enhance customer satisfaction.

Travelling has become one of the most popular leisure activities because of increased leisure time. Due to the low cost of travelling in a developing country, they have gained popularity as a tourist destination. Nonetheless, some developing countries do not have a comprehensive security system, thus the risk of visiting these countries is high. Some existing literature have discussed the factors which may affect tourist travel decisions with regards to developed countries, while others have investigated the various perceived risks in general, therefore, this paper analyses the influence of perceived risk on Hong Kong tourists’ decision making process toward an Asian developing country in this case India. A quantitative approach is used to collect primary data, survey is distributed to Hong Kong outbound tourists through simple random sampling. It is found that the more perceived risk that is associated with a destination, the less people will be willing to visit the destination. In the case of India, gang-rape issues have built up a negative image worldwide, which have resulted in a reduced number of visitors, especially female travellers. It is recommended that the Indian government can first address the crime issue in the most visited districts and focus on the adventurers who have a higher risk acceptance level, it is hoped that this limited market segment can generate word of mouth communication to attract mass tourism in the long term.

The ability to properly position a brand in the tourism market is crucial in reinforcing the competitiveness of a tourist destination. While there have been studies done on destination brand positioning, there are lack of a clear evident, in term the results of one’s brand positioning initiatives towards the growth of a particular destination. In accordance, this research aims to investigate the implications of brand positioning strategy, in relation towards the growth of Latvian tourism industry. The findings of this study will be obtained through qualitative approach, looking at the views from Latvian Tourism Development Agency, travel agency and tourists, along with some referrals on existing literatures through the application of customer-based brand equity and value proposition concept to assess Latvian brand positioning strategy. It was concluded that brand positioning strategy has major impacts towards the competitiveness and the growth of Latvia as a tourist destination. Concurrently, in developing a tourist destination, especially an underdeveloped destination, brand-positioning strategy should be considered to effectively attract the suitable market segment, efficiently develop the marketing initiatives and also established a better overall image and reputation within the global tourism market.

Organisation in 21st century should concentrate on their learning methods to survive in a rapid changing environment especially in hospitality, due to increasing competition. One of the non-traditional concept of learning is learning organisation. Due to its many advantages, it is widely analysed. Nonetheless, there is a gap in research of the concept in service industry context and especially in Switzerland for hospitality. By analysing the benefits, practices and competencies of learning organisation, in Marriott Zürich hotel, the research will fill the gap. To obtain the aim, the research will be surrounded by current literature. In the literature review, different frameworks, models and theories are studied such as, the five disciplines, the learning organisation model and the characteristics of learning organisation. The author evaluated number of available academic work and studies concerning learning organisation to have a deeper knowledge of the concept. To understand the primary context into further understanding, the author will organise in-depth interview with employees at different level of Marriott Zürich Hotel. The current research shows the main benefits of implementing the concept, practices in the organisation and competencies in developing a learning organisation. Regardless of the long-term benefits depend on the organisational culture and vital role of managers , it is not rigid that the organisation will fully be called a learning organisation and the required benefits will be acquired.

Satisfaction of employees in a business is critical as it determines success or failure in an organization. It has become adequately difficult for organizations to find the source of high employee turnovers as we are entering a new era. Commonly, job stress is responsible for the losses of working days in many organizations (Paille, 2011). Thus, the paper aims to explore the influence of job stress on employee turnover based on the case of Han’s Café in Perth, Australia. By adopting an approach to qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews are conducted to assimilate employee’s point of views. It is assumed that the instrument wielded provided findings that grasp a deeper understanding of the organization. However, since the research was conducted based on secondary research, this limited the findings. Adaptation of stress models and theories were used to advocate the findings. It was concluded that Han’s Café had many factors affecting their correlation between job stress and high employee turnovers.

Empowerment is thought to be a significant human resource tactic regarding satisfying and motivating the employees, especially in the hospitality industry. This sector has been growing at an outstanding rate; therefore, applying an effective empowerment technique can support and help organizations in order to boost the employees’ motivation and their accomplishments. In the viewpoint of providing analytical perspectives, this study has thoroughly examined numerous empowerment topics from a wide range of academic papers. Additionally, the researcher has struggled for a painstaking examination of the assimilating procedures of the accepted empowerment factors. On this note, the author approached different motivation theories so as to methodically assess by which means every staff member is dissimilarly motivated and satisfied with its work. Furthermore, studies also approached the aspect of recognizing and evaluating employee performance, fact that it thought to be the fundamental component causing the need of implementing empowerment practices. With the use of the secondary research findings, the researcher can moderately prove the desirable relationship between empowerment strategies and employee job motivation. Lastly, the other of this study candidly believes that the primary findings, as soon as they will be accomplished, will inclusively examine the actual relation and effects of the empowerment systems on employees’ motivation.

Organisations today have to face a wide array of complex issues, leadership being one of them. The prosperity of a company lies on following “a great” leader. Researchers have been investigating the main characteristics for a great leader and recently a contemporary issue is female leaders. Thus this paper will stress on women traits and their role in leadership, which has not been revealed yet, especially in hospitality industry. As leadership can be applied in many areas, the author got the chance to follow the historical development of it, hence how it evolved. This paper was built on previous discoveries on the topic, however the theories were implemented in the specific situation. The result of this paper is the variety of crucial factors that have been recognised, such as the vital role of women on hospitality industry and the upgrades that they made in leadership. However, the author answered the question of the influence of gender on leadership styles and as well on the great impact of self-confidence for every woman in high position. Following from the research made, the author sees how typical female traits are seen as extremely suitable for hospitality leaders. However, the writer believes that tourism is very rapidly changing industry, thus the researcher should not rely only on the material that has already been introduced, and concentrate more on what are the different qualities that can be implemented in the working environment.

Reward management is considered as on one of the strongest tools in organizations to motivate employees in order to achieve goals of the organizations. However, due to lack of experience and practices small privately owned hotels underestimate the influence of rewards or implement existing programs, used by large hotels. This study aims to analyse challenges and limitations in the implementation of reward policies in small privately owned resort hotels, as there is the gap between the importance, development and challenges of reward management in the human resource department of resorts located on small islands, and it has been discovered that small privately owned resort hotels are not utilizing the reward program in the efficient way. In this study the academic sources as news, journal articles, books... related to possible constraints and limitations of reward system in small remote hotels. Furthermore, the author also used theories and models and existing research to analyse the possible constraints for the case study on the example of empirical research and its implementation of models and theories in real life. From the findings of the secondary research the writer found out that in small privately owned hotels identification of rewards as a motivational tool is a main constraints in the development of reward policies, as well as distribution can cause main difficulties in the implementation of the program, though organizations need to create a measurement of the effectiveness of the system to examine satisfaction and acceptance of reward management.

Upcoming Releases

The publication of Volume 9 (2) is planned for July 2017. We welcome all organisations across the globe to publish hospitality and tourism related papers via the HTMi. Read our Editorial Policy to apply or contact mjost@htmi.ch for further information concerning submissions.